


Gorau Adnabod, d'Adnabod dy Hun

by veggiewolf



Category: Alternity - A Harry Potter Alternate Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-20
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-10 08:08:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4383965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veggiewolf/pseuds/veggiewolf





	1. Chapter 1

His father, in his rare good moods, used to pat him on the head and remind him that, "the wise man looks to himself before others. Remember that, boy." And, he remembers. Even if he wanted to forget, he couldn't.

Auntie tells him that his father almost didn't marry his mother. "Pure as she was, he didn't think she'd make a worthy wife." She thumps him on the side of the head, as affectionate as she ever is with him, and continues, "He was right. People always show their colours in the end." He thinks about the colours he saw, the reds and browns making pretty patterns on the floor, and wonders how those patterns fit into the larger concept of her; how all the things he knew came down to colours in the end. Auntie must see the question in his eyes, because she answers him as if he'd spoken, and her tone is gentler than it usually was. "Blood will tell, Theodore. She...who knows how far down the perversions ran? We none of us could see them, save your father, and for him the idea of _you_ kept him from questioning until it smacked him in the face."

Teddy isn't sure what a perversion is, or how they run (how many legs does a perversion have?  does it bite?), but he knows that _she_ ("Mother", in the secret places in his mind) was  _Bad_ , and that Auntie and Father will make sure the Badness doesn't get him, too.  He also knows that Father is proud to have a son who will carry on the name of Nott and bring the family to greatness, and he wants to do it but he doesn't quite know how just yet.

Teddy also knows that, as great as Father is, the Lord Protector is even greater and more terrible.  And, when he thinks of Him, he is overcome with trembling and wants to do everything at once.

The Lord Protector has a son called Harry, and Teddy isn't sure if he likes Harry very much, but he likes that he is allowed to play with Harry.  He doesn't understand why Harry doesn't come to  _his_ house, but Father says that Harry is Our Lord's son and that just seeing him is an honour, no matter where that is.  Teddy isn't sure about this, but Our Lord once touched his shoulder and Father was so pleased that he called for a toast when they got home and the elves brought out the wine from the cellar and even Auntie had a glass, although she does not approve of drink.

Teddy isn't sure what Auntie does approve, but he knows not to ask that question again.  Questions are discouraged, even though knowledge is a virtue; over the door in the front Hall are the words  _Gorau Adnabod, d'Adnabod dy Hun_.  Auntie says those words belong to  _him_ and that he'll understand them when he's older, but he understands them now.  It's the reason he spends so much time in his own head and would prefer to move things around to suit himself than to accept what goes on around him.  Although, he knows to be careful; when he tried to move one of Vanly's arms to a different position there was a CRACK! and Father was cross for days because Vanly kept spilling the soup.

House elves are funny things, Teddy thinks. They move in all sorts of ways that wizards don't, and he wants to understand what they can do and what they can't. But he's not allowed to play with the elves anymore unless Father or Auntie are watching. And Father would rather the elves be unseen and unheard unless absolutely necessary. Neither Father nor Auntie want a mudblood around the place, so Teddy doesn't know how _they_ work either. Maybe he will learn when he is old enough to go to Hogwarts.

Father doesn't like to tell him much about Hogwarts ("You'll know when you get there"), but he always reassures Teddy that he'll be in Slytherin. "How could a Nott _not_ (Father always pauses here to laugh at the joke) be in Slytherin?  It is Our Lord's House, and it is where you can achieve the destiny you're meant to have."  Teddy isn't sure what Father will do if he's not Sorted into Slytherin (Auntie always snorts and says that there are four Houses for a reason), but he knows Father will be disappointed and he suspects that this will not be a good thing.  

Sometimes, when Father's friends come to the house, Teddy hides behind a chair in the library and listens to the talking.  Usually, Father's friends know he is there and Father ends up sending him off to play.  But sometimes, they let him stay as long as they can't see him, and they talk about things they think he'll be interested in hearing.  Once they talked about mudbloods going to Hogwarts back when they were young, and all the ways they let the mudbloods know they were Bad, and then they say how much better Hogwarts will be now that mudbloods can't go there anymore.  Teddy wonders if there will be other students who are Bad and who need to be shown.  He hopes so - he quite likes Teaching Lessons even if Father thinks a wizard shouldn't use his hands like a Muggle, and his spells aren't good enough to make an Impression.

Father thinks Teddy should have friends, and so Teddy plays with Harry when Father can take him, or with Draco Malfoy, or Blaise Zabini. Draco has a mother and a father, and Blaise has a mother and lots of fathers that are gone. Draco's mother is very pretty, and sometimes Teddy wishes Father would take her and make Draco and his father go away. Then, he would have a Mother again, and Draco and his father would be gone. But, Draco's mother doesn't like Teddy because he played with her canary, and so it is probably Better that it is just Father and him. Sometimes, Teddy wishes Auntie would go wherever Blaise's fathers went. Maybe she could visit them for awhile.

 


	2. Knowing

The earliest memory Teddy can conjure up is not a happy one, but it's not unhappy either.  He's being held close to someone who smells like home while someone else is being very definite about something.  The someone who holds him is unhappy - Teddy can feel tension in the arms that hold him, and a trembling so slight that he's pretty sure the person _doing_ the trembling doesn't notice.  He knows something is going to happen, but doesn't know what. 

And that's it.  No memory of what comes next, if anything.  No real surety of who was holding him, and none about who the other person was.  When he thinks about this memory for too long, thoughts that he isn't supposed to have come into his head (Mother?  Why were you frightened?). When this happens, he scratches himself until he bleeds, and the thoughts go away, but sometimes it is very hard and he has to do it three or four or five times.  And, when that doesn't work, he goes to talk to Auntie.  If he asks enough questions, Auntie will give him a distraction.

Auntie's distractions don't always hurt, but they always take Teddy's mind off whatever it is he doesn't want to think about.  Sometimes she tells him stories about things that happened before he was born, and sometimes she tells him things she thinks he needs to know.  "Knowledge is power," she's fond of saying, as is Father, and Teddy believes this so wholeheartedly that he cannot stop himself from trying to learn more things.  A question, he's found, leads to an answer, and that answer can lead to another question with another answer, and the Things to Know just pile up.  He likes to have time to go over the Things to Know, to look at them from all sides, and poke them, and take them apart, and then put them into brightly coloured boxes with clear labels, and so he does this at night when Auntie and Father are sleeping so he doesn't get interrupted.  Also, he tried to label a Thing once when Auntie first told it to him, and she said he looked ill and made him take a nasty potion. 

Things to Know come in all different shapes and sizes, and sometimes they _change_.  Teddy likes it best when he Knows a Thing and then he learns something new  and the Thing has to be re-examined and studied and then put in a different box.  He used to Know that birds could fly because they had wings and feathers, and then he looked inside one and learned that birds also have hollow bones.  That made the Thing change shape; it became lighter and a little more fragile, so he had to put it in a box where it wouldn't break if another Thing bumped it.  Teddy thinks, sometimes, that all of the Things inside his head bump into each other if he is not careful, and sometimes he has to move v e r y  s l o w l y.  Other times, it doesn't matter.

Teddy likes animals; he likes to watch them, and read about them, and hear stories about them.  He has been to visit the Protector's Collection half a dozen times, and he always wants to go back because he learns so many new Things.  Auntie will only take him if he is very very good, though, and it is so hard to be as good as Auntie wants him to be!  Once, Father took him because there was a party and while the other children played games with Harry's nanny Mrs. Baylock, Teddy sneaked away and went to look at the animals by himself.  He was found, hours later, watching the lethifold watch _him_ ; Father side-alonged him home so abruptly that Teddy thought his arm was going to come off.  That time, it was Father who gave him Things to Know and he couldn't leave his bedroom for a week after that without his nerves screaming in pain.

Father made Auntie bring his meals up, but at the end of the week he came himself and stood in the doorway.  "Knowledge," he said, "is power.  But, there is also power in knowing when not to gather it.  There is a time and a place for everything, Theodore, and although the _place_ was appropriate, the _time_ was not."

Teddy pondered this for a moment, and then said, "I want to know _everything_ , Father."

The right side of Father's mouth curled up.  "I know you do, and that knowledge will propel you to do great things.  But you must learn to bide, boy.  _Mwyaf y brys, mwyaf y rhwystr_ , after all."  He walked away, without giving Teddy a chance to respond.

Teddy likes the way Father sounds when he speaks Cymraeg, but he hates hearing the same sayings over and over again.  He thinks he will make up his own one day, and will make other people learn them.  He also hates that there are some things that People think he shouldn't Know, but after the party at the Protector's Collection he stopped asking certain kinds of questions and started trying to learn Things on his own.  Sometimes this is very difficult, but other times it is as simple as opening it up to look inside, and Teddy opens a lot of things up to see how they work. In the last month, he's dismantled a clock, one of Father's boots (he had to hide it), and a willow withe basket, inch by painstaking inch.  He almost understands the gears of the clock, and he wants to try and put it back together; the other things, not so much.  Taking apart is more fun, and not everything will go back together anyway.  The mice certainly wouldn't.


	3. Auntie

One day, Teddy finds Auntie in the kitchens, supervising the elves and the weekly baking. Teddy used to think that the elves were very good at baking, but then he learned that Auntie directs them every week. He doesn't mind, though - it means he gets lovely _pice ar y maen_ , and _bara brith_ for tea, and it also means that Auntie is out of the way in case Teddy wants to open something on the parlor table.

Good smells are in the air; gingerbread, and shortbread, and _teisen mêl_ , and his mouth begins to water.  Finy brings him a slice of bread spread thickly with butter, and he munches it while watching Vanly add spices into a bowl.  Vanly is his favorite elf, but it is Finy who knows what he likes to eat and that he is almost always hungry; Auntie says he has two hollow legs, but Teddy is pretty sure he doesn't.  His legs are nothing like bird legs.

Auntie looks up, sees him, and looks back down at her recipe card.  "Well, Theodore, what have you to say for yourself today?"

Teddy never knows what to say when Auntie says things like this, and so he says nothing, preferring to study her before committing to a train of thought.  She is tall, with a stiff spine, and her robes are almost always dark with a high collar; her hair is the color of sea fog and pulled straight back from her face and held with pins; her eyes are piercing blue, and Teddy believes she can see his thoughts if she tries.  (She can't, but she's not above pretending so if it makes her nephew behave himself.)

Auntie sighs, and brushes one gnarled hand across her forehead.  It's warm in the kitchens, and she has a hundred things to do and none of them include amusing a small boy.  "Have you nothing to do, boy?"  She nods sharply at Vanly, who cracks two eggs into the bowl.  "It's a lovely day on the isle; why not go outdoors to play?"

"I've done everything already."  Teddy says it simply, just stating a fact.  "And I can't find my omnioculars."  He finishes his bread, and takes a glass of milk from Finy.  "I can't remember where I had them last." He drains the glass and sets it on the table, away from the edge.

Auntie crosses the kitchen and opens a drawer in the dresser that holds the crockery.  "Here."  She hands him a long brass rod, and he looks at it curiously.  "What is it, Auntie?"

"I don't think I'll tell you."  She returns to the table in the center of the kitchen and directly Vanly to stir more briskly.  "Wouldn't you rather learn for yourself what it can do?"  Auntie puts a slight stress on the word "learn", and his face lights up.  Holding the rod in his hand, he barrels out the kitchen door and down the hall; she can hear his footsteps all the way to the front door which opens, then closes with a BANG!

He races across the lawns toward the shore, waving the rod over his head, exhilarated.  The air is crisp and clear, and he can hear gulls wheeling overhead.  The breeze coming off the sea is soft, and it ruffles his hair like Auntie never has.  (Father did.  Once.  Maybe twice.)  He stops running to spin around once, twice, thrice, and falls to the ground, rod clutched in his hand.  Looking up at the clouds, his mind fills with thoughts of Auntie.

She wasn't always Auntie, he knows.  She was Brunhilda Nott, and a famous beauty if the portrait in the upstairs hall is really of her.  (Teddy isn't sure about this - the tall woman in the portrait has long light hair and a smile on her face; only the piercing blue eyes are the same.)  Father told him once that Auntie could've had any man she wanted as a husband if she'd hidden her intelligence; Teddy not only knows that Auntie is very smart but also knows that there is no way she would have hidden it.  He wonders why Father doesn't know this.   Teddy is not sure Auntie would have been happy to be married and have children, but he finds it difficult to picture her as anything but what she is - tall, proud, and very sure of herself.

Brunhilda was the first of her family to be Sorted beyond Slytherin, and Father is still annoyed by this.  After a few firewhiskeys of an evening, Father will rant that Auntie would have been just as able a student if she'd been Sorted correctly, but she laughs at this and says, "If Slytherin House is the only worthy House, why are there three others?"  When she does this, Teddy sees the brilliance of Brunhilda-who-Was shine through her usually serious demeanor - she appears lighter when she chides Father over Sorting, and is quick to point out that not all of the Twenty-Eight are of Slytherin House. 

She was an exemplary student, far better than Father was to hear them both tell it, and became a powerful witch.  Spells came easily to her hand, and she's as quick with non-verbal magic now as she was in her youth.  Teddy's felt the brunt of her spells more than once, and he can tell the quickness and subtlety of the way she wraps her magic from Father's ponderous power; he still wants to be Father when he grows up, but he'd like to do his spells like Auntie does hers.  He wonders if he'll be Sorted into Slytherin like Father wants, or Ravenclaw like Auntie was.

He points the rod at a cloud, and tries to focus his own magic through it.  Nothing.

Wizards clung to her like moss on a tree, but she disdained them all for her studies.  Even after leaving school, Brunhilda scorned the idea of being courted and preferred to spend her time in stillroom or garden to attending balls and parties.  Even now, the gardens and the stillroom are the envy of most of Father's friends, and sometimes when Teddy comes to say goodnight to Auntie she smells of herbs and ozone. 

Auntie is teaching him to garden and to brew, and she's given him a plot of his own in the gardens around the house where he can grow anything he wants.  He mostly grows food plants - potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and leeks - because Auntie says it is important to know where your food comes from, but he also grows some potions plants like aconite and stinging nettle.  He separates the food plants from the potions plants by putting flowers in between since he doesn't want to potion (or poison!) anyone while they're eating cauliflower cheese.

Teddy likes the stillroom better than the gardens, but it is off-limits unless Auntie is with him, and he is almost never allowed in her laboratory.  Once they had an elf who thought to clean the laboratory while Auntie was busy with something else; it took Finy and Vanly two weeks of scrubbing to get the stains out of the parquet.

Even though Auntie has always lived with them, off and on, Father formally asked her to run the house once he no longer had a wife.  Auntie agreed to do so during the week while Father attended to his business.  On week-ends, Auntie's hours are her own, and Teddy often wonders where she goes and what she does during that time; he knows she leaves the grounds and disapparates, and he knows she is back by Monday morning when he comes for breakfast, but nothing more.  Monday breakfast is always especially good; Auntie is in a good mood, the bacon is crisp, and there's Penclawdd cockle and laverbread cakes.  Teddy thinks they might not have laverbread at Hogwarts, and this makes him nervous because cockle and laverbread cakes are part of his Monday morning routine and how will he have a good week at school without it?  Once he brought it up to Auntie, but she dismissed his worries by saying that the elves at school are more than capable of a proper Welsh breakfast.

Auntie doesn't appear to worry about anything, and doesn't want Teddy to worry either.  "Theodore, there's no sense in worrying about what hasn't come to pass _if_ you've taken all steps to direct it in your favour."  He's not sure how to do this, though, and when he asks Auntie she tells him to go play, or read a book, or asks what he was doing in the parlor that made such a mess.  Auntie doesn't like a lot of questions, even though Father says she asked he same number of questions when she was a girl.  Maybe it's questions that lead to being Sorted incorrectly?  If so, Teddy knows he is Doomed.

He stands and, holding the rod parallel to the ground, begins to run again toward the water.  Maybe there will be something to poke along the shore.


	4. Elfish Things

Teddy sits in the corner of the study, under Father's desk, watching Finy shelve the books that were taken out the night before.  On the floor next to him is a plate of ginger biscuits, and he is covered with a green-and-silver rug so only his face and hands are visible.  He is practicing being Unseen because he is not allowed to play with the house elves, but if he is quiet and still then Finy won't tell Auntie.

Father doesn't understand Teddy's fascination with the elves; to him, elves are meant to be unseen and unheard except when absolutely necessary.  Auntie seems to understand his need to Learn about them, but she is more concerned that the elves be able to _do_ their work and since the Incident has been quicker to send Teddy on his way when she sees him following one.  But, when Teddy is Unseen, Auntie doesn't notice and doesn't make him find something else to do.

(In actuality, she always knows when he's following one of the elves, but she's learned to pretend otherwise to gain a moment's peace from time to time.)

Finy picks up a book, runs a cloth across both covers, checks the binding for creases, and then puts it gently back onto the shelf.  He picks up another book and does the same thing, and then another, and then another.  Teddy watches the books move through Finy's hands until suddenly he stops.  He takes the book that is in his hands and sets it on the tea table, and then resumes his earlier movements.

"Why did you do that?"

Finy jumps a little at the sound of Teddy's voice, but settles down. "I is setting that aside for repair, Master Teddy."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Master's book has a cracked spine.  All Master's books must be kept properly, so I is sending it out."

Teddy ponders this for a moment, especially the word "spine". He knows animals and people have spines to hold them together.  Why would a book have a spine?  Do books have bones inside that he can't see?  He watches Finy shelve the books, and the pile on the floor grow smaller.

"How did the spine crack?"

Finy stops shelving and turns to face Teddy.  "I is not knowing that, Master Teddy.  Maybe it is falling off the shelf.  Maybe it is being opened wide enough to lie flat time after time.  I is knowing it needs fixing, so I is sending it out."

Teddy frowns.  He knows he isn't asking the right questions, but he's not sure what the right questions are.  He eats a biscuit while Finy stands and waits for another question.

Finally: "Did it hurt?"  He eats another biscuit.

"Master Teddy, I is not understanding."

"Did it hurt when the book's spine cracked?"

"I is not knowing, Master Teddy, but I is thinking not.  Books is not alive."

A pause, then: "Do only alive things hurt?"

Finy looks at him for a long moment, then looks away.  "Master Teddy, I is not knowing these things."

"What things?"

"Wizard things.  I is not knowing wizard things; I is only knowing elfish things."

Teddy is momentarily diverted by this idea - there are wizard Things, and there are elfish Things.  He wonders if there are Muggle Things, too, and mudblood Things, and cat Things, and bird Things.  He wonders how many Things there are, and if these Things are the same as his Things to Know. 

Finy watches Teddy in the same manner a mouse watches a snake creeping through the grass, and when Teddy looks up he jumps again.

"Finy, tell me an elfish Thing."

Finy's shoulders relax a bit; this is clearly not where he thought the boy was going to go.  "Master Teddy, elfish things is not important for wizards."

"Tell me an elfish Thing.  I want to Know an elfish Thing!"

The elf doesn't sigh, exactly, but he makes a noise so faint that no one but another elf would hear it.  He wouldn't dare to do so if another elf were present, and especially not if Mistress were there; her magic was almost as sensitive as elf hearing.  "I is scenting the linens with sea spurge to help Master sleep.  Master likes the scent of the dunes."

This is not only an interesting Thing to Know, but it is a Thing to Know about Father.  Teddy is intrigued.  "What else, Finy?  What else?"

"Master Teddy, I is having work to do.  Mistress is getting upset if I is not working."

"Please?  Just one more Thing?"

"I is knowing how to be unseen, Master Teddy.  All us elves is knowing how.  Being unseen is an elfish thing." 


	5. Wizard Things

At Finy's words, Teddy jumps up and runs out of Father's study.  His feet pound on the flagstones, and rugs scatter every which way as he races down the long hall toward...something.  He's not quite sure where he means to go, only that sometimes he needs to move in order to think, and right now Teddy wants to turn this new idea over and over in his mind so he can see it from every angle.

He turns a corner and heads into the ballroom where he can run in circles without knocking anything over.  Auntie becomes  _very_ cross when things fall on the floor, and if Teddy is near something when it falls (he wonders why that happens so much when he doesn't even touch them!) she will give him a particular distraction, and trying to tell an elfish Thing from a wizard Thing is hard enough without wondering if Auntie will be able to find her blackthorn staff.

Around and around he goes, mind racing in step with his feet.  If Finy is right - and Teddy suspects he is for all that Father says elves are unintelligent and unreliable - then there are Things that belong to elves, and Things that belong to wizards, and elves cannot Know wizard Things and wizards cannot Know elfish Things...and then he stops because that thought, that one right there, is one Teddy knows Father will not like.  He puts his hands over his ears for a moment to stop the thought from coming out, and closes his eyes tight so he cannot see it.

When he is sure nothing escaped, Teddy opens his eyes, stretches his arms out parallel to the ballroom floor, and begins to spin.  As he spins, he tries again:  _fish_ _breathe underwater_ , he thinks,  _and other animals do not.  Breathing underwater is a fish Thing_.    That works, and it doesn't make his stomach feel like he ate one-too-many Bertie Bott's Beans.   _Cats say miaow, and other animals do not.  Miaowing is a cat Thing_.  That works too, and Teddy is excited now because he is putting Things in Boxes.  He spins faster, and each time something goes into a box he does a little hop.

 _Croaking is a frog Thing!_   *hop*

 _Slithering is a snake Thing!_   *hop*

_Barking is a dog Thing!_

Teddy is about to hop when he realizes that barking is also a seal Thing...although the barks sound a little different...and he plops down onto the floor, dizzy.  Looking up at the grisaille on the ceiling, he is thinking about this when he hears, "Theodore, why are you lying on the floor like a corpse?"

He sits up.  Sometimes, Auntie moves so quietly that Teddy doesn't realize she is there until she wants him to.  He wishes he could move like Auntie, but his own feet won't be quiet enough to sneak no matter how hard he hits them.  "I'm thinking, Auntie," he says, rubbing his eyes until he sees lovely coloured patterns.

"If you want to keep your eyes in your head, you'll stop rubbing them so hard."  He stops, and looks at the floor, and she watches him for a moment.  In a tone he doesn't recognize, sounding almost _gentle_ , she says, "Tell Auntie, then."

And, he does.  His mouth opens like a floodgate and everything pours out - watching Finy with the books, and wanting to be Unseen, and Boxes, and elfish Things and cat Things and wizard Things, and Father...and when Teddy runs out of words he folds over like a blanket on a chair.  Looking up at Auntie, he can see Brunhilda-who-Was looking back, and for a moment his own mind goes silent.

"So many thoughts in your head, Theodore!"  He hears a note of pride in Auntie's voice and he is not quite certain what to do with it.  She continues, "Let's see if we can't put some things in order for you; you may have an easier time situating yourself with a foundation under those racing feet."  He lets himself be guided across the ballroom and into a chair (Father has set up several groups of chairs in what he calls "conversation nooks" along the west wall, but Teddy isn't sure how they can be nooks when anyone will fit in them.)

Auntie seats herself, and begins an explanation of house elves, and elfish (though she calls it elvish) thinking.  "They were made subservient so long ago, Theodore, that most elves now think only in terms of their duties to wizards.  The ones that don't, well...they either learn to hide it or they end up with their head on a wall.  Anything that falls into a category they believe is "improper" becomes best not thought about."  When Teddy looks confused, she clarifies, "If an elf shouldn't do it, or think about it, it is not an "elvish thing"  That is what Finy meant."

"Finy said "elfish", Auntie."

"I'm certain he did.  However, we must use the proper words when we have them."  

Auntie looks at him firmly, and Teddy decides that using proper words must be an Auntie Thing.  Instead of thinking about this further, he asks, "Auntie, does that mean Finy couldn't answer my question?" 

"Finy either _could_ not answer the question, or believed he  _should_  not answer the question.  And that is something that you must respect - an elf will never speak of something they ought not to."

"But, Auntie, Father says that elves must do as wizards say and..."

"Theodore."  

Teddy closes his mouth with a snap at the tone in Auntie's voice, and waits for her to continue.

"Theodore, you  _are_ a wizard, but you are also a child.  There are many things you have not learned yet, and until you learn them it is up to someone else to guide you.  Most of the time, that someone else will be an adult witch or wizard but  _occasionally_ it may be someone else.  In this case, Finy guided you away from discussing "wizard things" with him, which is proper.  "Wizard things" are only discussed with another wizard, or a witch."

"What about other Things?  N-not wizard Things, but animal Things, or elf...elVish Things?"  Teddy looks at his aunt, hoping she'll be able to give him an answer that makes sense instead of saying he has more to learn.  He _knows_ he has more to learn, and he would be learning more if unimportant things like using napkins or wiping his feet didn't keep getting in the way.

"For other things, you may ask whoever knows and is able to communicate with you.  A cat might not be able to tell you about cat things in a way you could understand, but someone who knows about cats, like Mrs. Boerton, would be able to discuss them with you."  As Brunhilda-who-Was, she can see the wheels turning in her nephew's head as he processes this information.  She can, however, also see Teddy's dislike of Mrs. Boerton get in the way, and adds, "Knowledge is power, you know, and we must always go to the source when we can, no matter how much we wish to avoid it."

Teddy scrunches his face up for a moment, and then his stomach growls so loudly that he thinks it must be echoing through the ballroom.  He realizes how hungry he is just as Auntie says, "Now, it's nearly tea, and Vanly was dusting the _Tiessennau Mel_ with sugar before laying out the trolley.  Shall we see what else might be good?"  

At the mention of tea, Teddy jumps out of the chair and races for the door.  Auntie follows, at a more sedate pace, her own mind a whirlwind as Brunhilda-who-Was plans ways to encourage the little Ravenclaw mind thundering down the hall.


End file.
